upgrading equipment

[JRice]

Been off the board for a couple months, and had to re-register. I've been looking back through posts for the past few days and have a question or two.

First some background. My diving is primarily involving a volunteer dive team, and as such gear is more or less up to the individual. The team supplys a very basic setup (read cheap) Rarely do we excede 50 feet, but most of our diving is in 40-60 degree water with less than 1 foot viz. My current setup is a fairly cheap jacket style BC, 7 mil farmer john, and 7 mil step through jacket, DUI harness, Scubapro MK 18 primary, and G250 secondarys. All tanks are Al80's. With the current setup if I'm using both peices of the suit I'm using about 33# in the harness (may be able to get by with 30), and 4 in the trim pockets of the BC as I use them in the pool when wearing just trunks.

I'm looking to get away from my current BC and go to either the BP/wing, or go to womething along the lines of a Ranger/Stilletto. Would either have a significant benefit over the other as far as allowing me to get rid of some of the extra balast I'm having to use? I'm thinking the BP/wing may be better in this regard as the only material is in the harness, and the plate should take care of about 9 pounds of it. If I could get it down to where I am not using the harness and only using an integrated system, oor in the case of the BP only having to run say 10-15 on a soft belt that would be great.

Another consideration is would going to a better quality suit be likely to help. Say a 5mil full body and a 5 mil shorty as a layer? Just thinking out loud.

Thanks in advance.

 

[micklock]

Get a steel tank and a ss backplate and you could drop about 20 pounds.

 

[Jorgy]

Any option to dive dry? 40 degrees is cold...................

A lot of your weight is to sink the wetsuit.........

I use a hyper compressed neoprene drysuit with polypro undergarments down to mid-40's......and am very comfortable........

With a LP95 tank and SS BP/W as mentioned by micklock I add 10 lbs of lead.......

M

 

[rstofer]

With a 6# SS plate, an HP100 tank (-2.5# empty) and a 7/8mm semi-dry one-piece wetsuit, I still need 20# of weight in a harness. If I were willing to swim down the first few feet, I could get rid of 4#. i have a 2# plate and when I used it with the same harness, I had to swim down. So, maybe I could get away with 18# in the harness.

I could add 8# weights to my backplate and remove it from my harness but my rig would then weight 6# + 8# + 43# ((tank) + 2# (reg) or just about 60#. I don't want to lift that much. Better for me to spread out the load.

Richard

 

[JRice]

Jorgy,

Eventually dry will happen, but currently a dry suit is about half of the team budget for the year most times. I've consdered one of the semi drys though. According to my log if 'm not using the farmer john I drop to about 22#. The biggest problem is that first 3-4 feet. After that I can drop like a rock.

 

[micklock]

With a 6# SS plate, an HP100 tank (-2.5# empty) and a 7/8mm semi-dry one-piece wetsuit, I still need 20# of weight in a harness. If I were willing to swim down the first few feet, I could get rid of 4#. i have a 2# plate and when I used it with the same harness, I had to swim down. So, maybe I could get away with 18# in the harness.

I could add 8# weights to my backplate and remove it from my harness but my rig would then weight 6# + 8# + 43# ((tank) + 2# (reg) or just about 60#. I don't want to lift that much. Better for me to spread out the load.

Richard

Yea 20# might be a litle stretch, figure 7# difference in tanks (al+4 hp80-3), 6# ss plate and 4-5# difference from bc to harness. So about 17# less in lead.

 

[JRice]

That would be doable as it's likely to cut the lead in half.

I'm thinking if I go that rout I'm looking at roughly a what 30# wing. something to consider is when we are successfull we are on the way back up with more than we went down with.